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Government Monitoring of Online Media and its Influence on Netizens’ Language Use in China

Government Monitoring of Online Media and its Influence on Netizens’ Language Use in China

Wengao Gong
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 18
ISBN13: 9781609608330|ISBN10: 160960833X|EISBN13: 9781609608347
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-833-0.ch011
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MLA

Gong, Wengao. "Government Monitoring of Online Media and its Influence on Netizens’ Language Use in China." Computer-Mediated Communication across Cultures: International Interactions in Online Environments, edited by Kirk St.Amant and Sigrid Kelsey, IGI Global, 2012, pp. 155-172. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60960-833-0.ch011

APA

Gong, W. (2012). Government Monitoring of Online Media and its Influence on Netizens’ Language Use in China. In K. St.Amant & S. Kelsey (Eds.), Computer-Mediated Communication across Cultures: International Interactions in Online Environments (pp. 155-172). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60960-833-0.ch011

Chicago

Gong, Wengao. "Government Monitoring of Online Media and its Influence on Netizens’ Language Use in China." In Computer-Mediated Communication across Cultures: International Interactions in Online Environments, edited by Kirk St.Amant and Sigrid Kelsey, 155-172. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2012. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60960-833-0.ch011

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Abstract

In the last 15 years, China has witnessed the world’s fastest growth in terms of Internet infrastructure construction and number of Internet users. In order to realize its ambition in maximizing the economic value of the Internet while minimizing its destabilizing and disruptive potential, the Chinese government has adopted a policy that encourages the technological development of the Chinese Internet. The government, however, also maintains a very tight control over the Chinese people’s online activities. In order to avoid or break through the government’s regulatory effort, netizens in China have worked out many interesting ways of expressing ideas online. Among the various linguistic strategies adopted by Chinese netizens, five are particularly prominent and arguably more effective. They are using homophony, dismantling Chinese characters, using sarcasm, extending the semantic sense of words, and using English or Pinyin initials. This chapter examines how government monitoring of online media in China is employed to restrict people’s freedom of expression and how Chinese netizens are using certain features inherent in their language and culture to exercise their right of free expression in such a context.

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